Steven Bochco, one of Hollywood most prolific and acclaimed television producers, died this weekend following a lengthy battle with leukemia, according to multiple reports. He was 74.

Further details of his death have yet to be revealed.

Over the course of his illustrious career, Bochco was the creative force behind such mega-hits as NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and Doogie Houser, M.D., to name just a few. He is credited for adding a groundbreaking dose of gritty reality to his police dramas, which ultimately changed the way such stories were depicted on television.

Bochco began his career writing and story editing on such series as Ironside, Columbo, and The Invisible Man. Hill Street Blues is considered his first major critical success as a producer, and it earned him his first two Primetime Emmys in 1981 for Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. (The show garnered 98 Emmy nominations throughout its seven-season run.)

Bochco picked up a total of 10 Primetime Emmys (out of a whopping 30 nominations) and four Peabodys. He was honored with the Producers Guild of America’s David Susskind lifetime achievement award in 1999.

Additional notable credits by Bochco include Murder One, Commander in Chief, Raising the Bar, Civil Wars, and Cop Rock. The producer’s most recent series, Murder in the First, aired on TNT from 2014 until 2016.

Bochco also wrote a novel, Death By Hollywood, which was released in 2003.

Cast members from a number of Bochco’s shows, as well as fellow Hollywood writers and producers are sharing their memories of the television icon on social media.

“It was his vision, style, taste and tenacity that made me love watching TV. It was being on #NYPDBlue that made me love working on TV,” NYPD Blue star Sharon Lawrence wrote on Twitter. “Thank you and rest well Steven Bochco. You were one of a kind.”

“Steven Bochco sat with Jake Kasdan and myself before we started Freaks and Geeks and let us grill him for advice,” Judd Apatow recalled. “We used all of it. He was a great man and will forever be an inspiration.”

“My heart is breaking. His legacy will live on forever,” wrote Law & Order: SVU executive producer and writer Julie Martin.

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"When your city is French in origin, and your Mayor and Governor are Democrats, and those most affected by this natural disaster are Black, don't expect much help from Bush." -- Left of Y'all (and the link works now too! )

South African anti-apartheid campaigner and former first lady Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died aged 81.

She and her former husband Nelson Mandela, who were both jailed, were a symbol of the country's anti-apartheid struggle for three decades.

However, in later years her reputation became tainted legally and politically.

Crowds of mourners and political figures flocked to her home in Soweto, in Johannesburg, after news of her death broke.

Family spokesman Victor Dlamini confirmed earlier on Monday that Mrs Mandela "succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones" following a long illness, which had seen her go in and out of hospital since the start of the year.

Mrs Madikizela-Mandela was born in 1936 in the Eastern Cape - then known as Transkei.

She was a trained social worker when she met her future husband in the 1950s. They went on to have two daughters together.

They were married for a total of 38 years, although for almost three decades of that time they were separated due to Mr Mandela's long imprisonment.

It was Mrs Madikizela-Mandela who took his baton after he was jailed for life, becoming an international symbol of resistance to apartheid. She too was jailed for her role in the fight for justice and equality.

To her supporters, she became known affectionately as "Mother of the Nation".

In a televised address President Cyril Ramaphosa - whom Mrs Madikizela-Mandela praised earlier this year - called her as a "voice of defiance" against white-minority rule. "In the face of exploitation, she was a champion of justice and equality," he said on Monday. "She as an abiding symbol of the desire of our people to be free".

Retired archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu said she was a "defining symbol of the struggle against apartheid. Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists," he added.

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"When your city is French in origin, and your Mayor and Governor are Democrats, and those most affected by this natural disaster are Black, don't expect much help from Bush." -- Left of Y'all (and the link works now too! )

Art Bell - former host of Coast to Coast radio show.Still my all time favourite radio show.RIP!

Art Bell passed away on April 13, 2018 in Pahrump. (Source: Nye County Sheriff's Office)Art Bell passed away on April 13, 2018 in Pahrump. (Source: Nye County Sheriff's Office)PAHRUMP, NV (FOX5) -Longtime Pahrump resident and radio host Arthur Bell died Friday at the age of 72, according to the Nye County Sheriff's Office.

Bell died at his home in Pahrump, the sheriff's office said. An autopsy has been scheduled to determine his exact cause of death.

Bell was the original owner of radio KYNE. But he may have been best known for his conspiracy theory and paranormal radio show "Coast to Coast," which was nationally syndicated.

R. Lee Ermey, best known for his Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, has died. He was 74.

Ermey’s longtime manager announced the news via a tweet to Ermey’s official Twitter account.

“It is with great sadness that I regret to inform you all that R. Lee Ermey (‘The Gunny’) passed away this morning from complications of pneumonia. He will be greatly missed by all of us,” the tweet reads.

In addition to his role in Stanley Kubrick’s Oscar-nominated film, which earned him a best supporting actor Golden Globe nod, Ermey had several other mostly authority figure roles to his credit, including Sheriff Hoyt in 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a police captain in Se7en, and the voice of the plastic army men’s leader Sarge in Toy Story.

Ermey was a former United States Marine Corps staff sergeant and honorary gunnery sergeant, and served as a drill instructor during his tenure from 1961-1972. He was stationed in Okinawa, Japan for one year until 1968, when he was moved to Vietnam and spent 14 months in country.

His first film role occurred when he was studying in the Philippines, and he played a First Air Cavalry chopper pilot in Apocalypse Now, also serving as a technical adviser to Francis Ford Coppola. He had a series of other small roles until his casting in 1987’s Full Metal Jacket.

Ermey was originally meant to function only as a technical adviser to Kubrick, but when Kubrick was impressed by an instructional tape Ermey put together in which he went on long rants at extras, he instead cast him in the role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. Kubrick allowed Ermey to improvise and write or edit his dialogue, and he said Ermey often only needed two or three takes to finish a scene — both unusual for Kubrick films.

All told, Ermey had roles in some 60-plus films, as well as several voice credits, including The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Simpsons, and Family Guy.

On top of his voice acting, he hosted two programs for the History Channel: Mail Call, in which he provided expertise on military issues, both modern and historic, and Lock N’ Load with R. Lee Ermey, which focused on the development of different types of weapons.

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"When your city is French in origin, and your Mayor and Governor are Democrats, and those most affected by this natural disaster are Black, don't expect much help from Bush." -- Left of Y'all (and the link works now too! )

In the small of the night, when the mind is open and the defenses are eased, mysteries blossom and conspiracies run wild. In the darkest of hours, Art Bell was a light left on for the lonely, the insomniacs, the Americans searching for answers in a society they believed was spinning out of control.

For more than two decades, Mr. Bell, who was 72 when he died April 13 at his home in Pahrump, Nev., stayed up all night talking to those people on the radio, patiently encouraging them to tell their stories about alien abductions, crop circles, anthrax scares and, as he put it, all things “seen at the edge of vision.” The Nye County, Nev., sheriff’s office said an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.

At Mr. Bell’s peak in the 1990s, his show, “Coast to Coast AM,” was on more than 400 radio stations. He took calls all night long, alone in the studio he built on his isolated homestead in Pahrump, in the Nevada desert. He punched up the callers himself, unscreened, keeping one line just for those who wanted to talk about what really happened at Area 51, the U.S. government reserve that for decades has been a locus of UFO sightings and purported encounters with alien beings.

Long before fake news became a political topic, Mr. Bell made a good living encouraging Americans to accept the most fantastic and unlikely tales, to believe that we are not alone, to accept that in a world where the pace of life seemed to quicken with every passing year, there were forces from beyond that were trying to tell us something.

Bell was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on June 17, 1945. The only **09** in a military family, he moved around a lot as a kid.

He later served in the the Air Force as a medic during the Vietnam War, but his love for radio was always there. According to Coast to Coast AM, he was an FCC licensed radio technician at age 13, and while in the Air Force, he created an on-base pirate radio station that played anti-war music.

It wasn’t until the mid-1980s, when he returned to the United States and joined KDWN-AM in Las Vegas, that talk radio captivated Bell. There, he mastered his famous blend of contemporary and unsettling.

“I want to bring topics on radio you otherwise might not hear,” Bell, then 50, told the Pahrump Valley Times in January 1996.

Bell was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2006 and into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2008, the same year he sold KNYE to Karen Jackson.

Bell’s genuine interest in the topics he discussed contributed to the interest and entertainment his show generated, she said in a press release to the Review-Journal.

“Art was a pioneer in broadcasting taking overnight talk radio to new heights which generated huge audiences,” Jackson said. “He was a master at creating spell binding, intriguing, sometimes frightening and thoroughly compelling talk radio.”

“No one has been more loved by their family, friends and listening audience,” she said.

“As he begins his journey on the ‘other side,’ we take solace in the hope that he is now finding out all of the answers to the mysteries he pursued for so many nights with all of us,” Coast to Coast said in a statement Saturday.

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rtpoe"Among the changing months, May stands confestThe sweetest, and in fairest colors dressed."

Breaking: Barbara Bush, wife of a president, and mother of a president, has died.

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"When your city is French in origin, and your Mayor and Governor are Democrats, and those most affected by this natural disaster are Black, don't expect much help from Bush." -- Left of Y'all (and the link works now too! )

His rep says Avicii died in the Middle Eastern country of Oman. Details surrounding his death are still unclear.

Avicii's real name is Tim Bergling. He was born in Sweden.

His reps issued a statement, 'It is with profound sorrow that we announce the loss of Tim Bergling, also known as Avicii. He was found dead in Muscat, Oman this Friday afternoon local time, April 20th. The family is devastated and we ask everyone to please respect their need for privacy in this difficult time. No further statements will be given.'

Avicii had struggled with addiction in the past. He was hospitalized twice for alcohol related issues ... though it's unclear at this point if that had anything to do with his death.

He dropped some of the biggest EDM songs in the world including, "Levels," "Hey Brother" and his massive hit "Wake Me Up" with Aloe Blacc.

He was nominated for 2 Grammys for Best Dance Recording in 2011 and 2012, for "Levels" and "Sunshine" -- and he was just nominated for a Billboard Music Award for Top Dance/Electronic Album.

Avicii retired from live performances in 2016, but before that he was easily one of the highest paid DJs in the world ... earning $28 million in 2014, according to Forbes.

His last Instagram post was just over 2 weeks ago when he was in California. He had a home in the Hollywood Hills.

When he quit touring, Avicii said, 'One part of me can never say never, I could be back ... but I won't be right back.'

Avicii was 28. RIP."

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"When your city is French in origin, and your Mayor and Governor are Democrats, and those most affected by this natural disaster are Black, don't expect much help from Bush." -- Left of Y'all (and the link works now too! )

"Verne Troyer -- best known for playing Mini-Me in the 'Austin Powers' comedies, and for being one of the shortest men in the world -- has died.

Verne died Saturday, according to a statement from his family. We'd been told he was on some form of life support since being taken to the hospital earlier this month after cops got a report he was drvnk and suicidal, and was treated for possible alcohol poisoning.

Verne's family says during the recent adversity, 'he was baptized while surrounded by his family.'

He also struggled with alcoholism for years and had been to rehab many times.

Troyer was born with the genetic disorder known as achondroplasia dwarfism, but said growing up on a farm in Michigan he was never treated differently by his parents than his average-sized siblings.

Verne began his Hollywood career in 1994 as a stunt double for Baby Bink in the film Baby's Day Out. He then landed small roles in Men in Black and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ... before making it big as Mini-Me in 1999's Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

He continued to land bit roles in comedies and appeared on many popular reality shows over the years ... like Cele brity Juice, Cele brity Wife Swap, and The Surreal Life.

Verne was 49. RIP"

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"When your city is French in origin, and your Mayor and Governor are Democrats, and those most affected by this natural disaster are Black, don't expect much help from Bush." -- Left of Y'all (and the link works now too! )

Born in Italy, he and his family hid out from the Nazis and eventually followed a relative to Pittsburgh. There, Bruno gained notice as a weightlifter and strongman, and he got recruited by wrestling promoter Rudy Miller. Sammartino’s Italian heritage, brute strength and charisma helped make him an instant star in the northeast. He had rivalries with early wrestling legends like Killer Kowalski, Gorilla Monsoon and George “The Animal” Steele, and became one of the biggest draws at Madison Square Garden, selling out the arena over 180 times.

On May 17, 1963, he defeated Buddy Rogers to take the World Wide Wrestling Federation championship. He would hold the belt until losing to Ivan Koloff on January 18, 1971 - an unbelievable 4,040 days. He regained the title in 1973, and held it for three years. That's also one of the five longest title runs in their history.

In the late 1980s, a disagreement with VInce McMahon over the direction of the sport caused him to walk away from the arena. By 2013, he felt the WWE had cleaned up its act, so he came back to the sport in time to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

"Nobody deserves to be recognized for being a big star and paving the way for the stars of today more than Bruno," said WWE executive Paul "Triple H" Levesque, at the time of Sammartino's induction. "Everything that we have today in the business, Bruno was a cornerstone of that foundation."

“I grew up watching Bruno. He was an amazing performer, who made his Pittsburgh natives proud. He was a champion’s champion. I got to know Bruno in his latter years, after he retired from the then WWWF. He carried himself with dignity, and was always courteous to his fans. A true role model and hero." - Olympic gold medalist and WWE star Kurt Angle

“Some of the fondest memories of my childhood are of sitting in the basement with my grandfather on Saturday afternoons and watching Bruno wrestle. They both came from the same part of Italy, and when my grandfather – who was five-foot-eight – would watch Bruno wrestle he became six-feet-ten.” - Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto

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rtpoe"Among the changing months, May stands confestThe sweetest, and in fairest colors dressed."

Journalist, non-fiction writer, novelist and New York dandy Tom Wolfe has died at the age of 87 in a Manhattan hospital. He invented such terms as " Radical Chic " ( a term for the 1960's ) and the " Me Decade " ( what he called the 1970's ) and authored such non - fiction books like one of my favorites, " The Right Stuff ", in which he chronicled the post World War 2 test pilot program and popularized General Chuck Yeager ( first man to break the speed of sound ) and then the initial exploits of the Mercury program astronauts of NASA.

And he was a semi-pro ballplayer, and claimed to actually had a tryout with the NY Giants in 1952. His fastball wasn't up to par.

"If America values itself as a land where individuals can realize their potential to the fullest, then there are few most quintessentially American writers than Tom Wolfe himself. He was simply irreplaceable." - Matthew Rosza, Salon

“He showed us how to walk into a cocktail party, a NASA training center — how to walk down the street, and see in front of us this incredible drama of amazing richness, and amazing significance,” - Lev Grossman, TIME (in an NPR piece)

“He is probably the most skillful writer in America. I mean by that he can do more things with words than anyone else.” - William F. Buckley

“I do novels a bit backward,” Wolfe once explained. “I look for a situation, a milieu first, and then I wait to see who walks into it.”

The Man in Full (1988)

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rtpoe"Among the changing months, May stands confestThe sweetest, and in fairest colors dressed."

Margot Kidder aka Lois Lane in all of the Christopher ReeveSuperman films, died peacefully in her s leep at her home in Montana on May 13. She was 69.

In 2016, Kidder told entertainment website Hey U Guys that her chemistry with Reeve was authentic "because we came from similar backgrounds and he looked like one of my brothers...So the energy we had was one of brother and sister, which was often bickering, that took the place of romantic energy," she said. "No one noticed the difference one from the other -- it worked. We didn't have to create a different reality."

Born in the Northwest Territories of Canada, she made her professional acting debut on the TV series Wojeck in 1969 and had her first film role in the 1968 Canadian movie The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar. Hollywood soon beckoned and a move to Los Angeles led to roles on TV shows including McQueen, Mod Squad and Nichols.

But playing scrappy reporter and Superman's love interest Lois Lane was her breakout role. Kidder told Hey U Guys she thought the film would be a flop.

"Nothing prepares anyone for that sudden thing of being world famous, it was such a shock," she said. "It wasn't something I really liked or something I was very good at. I didn't realize how good the movie was until I seen it at the premier in Washington."

She also starred in The Amityville Horror in 1979 and worked steadily in television and on stage.

After three marriages and thousands of dollars in medical bills, Kidder found herself homeless in 1996 as she struggled with bipolar disorder.

Her story grabbed the hearts of fans and Hollywood with many reaching out to help Kidder, who eventually got back on her feet and went on to become a mental health advocate. By the 2000s, she maintained steady work in independent films and television, with guest-starring roles on Smallville (as Bridgette Crosby, an emissary of Dr. Swann, played by Christopher Reeve), Brothers & Sisters and The L Word. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour. She also acted in theatrical productions, most notably appearing on Broadway in a 2002 production of The Vagina Monologues.

Kidder dated former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, directors Brian De Palma and Steven Spielberg, writer/director Tom Mankiewicz, and actor/comedian Richard Pryor. She was married and divorced three times: to American novelist Thomas McGuane, from 1975 to 1977; to the late Home Alone actor John Heard, for six days in 1979; and to the late French film director Philippe de Broca, from 1983 to 1984.

She maintained a close friendship with her Superman co-star Christopher Reeve, which lasted from 1978 until his death in 2004. "When you're strapped to someone hanging from the ceiling for months and months, you get pretty darned close,"Kidder told CBS. "He was such a huge part of my life... He was complicated, very smart, really smart, and he knew he'd done something meaningful. He was very aware of that and very happy with that role."

« Last Edit: May 18, 2018, 11:55:27 AM by TheZookie007 »

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"When your city is French in origin, and your Mayor and Governor are Democrats, and those most affected by this natural disaster are Black, don't expect much help from Bush." -- Left of Y'all (and the link works now too! )

Born in Brooklyn, he said in a 2016 interview that he started drawing at the age of 8 and never stopped. After graduating from Pratt Institute, he approached the art director of the poster department at Warner Bros.' offices in New York. He was tasked with designing posters for a couple of already-released movies as a test. He passed - and was charged with creating the poster for Casablanca.

After a three-year stint working on training films for the military during WWII, he came back to Warner Brothers. By the early 60s, he had enough credibility to start his own design firm. Over 2000 movies have posters by Gold.

"With Bill, I knew he would bring great ideas, and the poster he created would be one less thing we had to think about,"Clint Eastwood writes in the introduction to the 2010 book Bill Gold PosterWorks. "He respected the film, he respected the story, and he always respected what we were trying to accomplish. The first image you have of many of your favorite films is probably a Bill Gold creation."

Movie critic Leonard Maltin once noted that each of Gold's posters is "as individual as the movies they are promoting. I can't discern a Bill Gold style, which is a compliment, because rather than trying to shoehorn a disparate array of movies into one way of thinking visually, he adapted himself to such a wide variety."

A profile on CBS Sunday Morning in March:

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rtpoe"Among the changing months, May stands confestThe sweetest, and in fairest colors dressed."